What audio gear have you gained lately?
 

It's always nice to see people being happy with what they have gained.
Bought or got something and want to share your joy with us? Please do!

I got this USB audio interface yesterday:
http://www.nextway.ch/images/esi_U24_XL.jpg
Completely for free :).

freebees? How did you manage that?

I have a forum of my owned called analogaudio.
One of the forum members had this lying around and gave it away.
He's a nice guy (not just because of that ;)) ;).
I was the first to reply.

Freebees are not that hard to get. You just need to be really alert and let everyone know what you collect.

I was at my ex-girlfriends place lately, in Utrecht.
I had an appointment there with a guy who would deliver a Revox tapedeck at her house.
The price was about 40 dollars which is dead cheap, since a revox usually does three or four times that money.
I mailed the man I was in Utrecht and if he had time to come by. I also asked him to tell me when he was coming, so I could get the money from an ATM.
He then replied 'forget about the money, that was just to filter serious replies'.
Got the revox for free. I ran to the store before he came and bought him a box of chocolates. Was the least I could do :)

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...o/IMG_1441.jpg

The thing with tapedecks is, you have to know what's what.
Theres machines worth $5, there's machines worth $2000.
I often buy a machine for a nice price and then sell an accessory for the price I bought the machine for. It's not because I'm a cheapskate or some sort of dealer, I just don't have that much money. I need those lucky moments.
Also I don't think it's reasonable to pay hundreds of dollars for a 35 year old obsolete machine. True, they can sound better than a CD, but I'm just not willing to pay that much just because there is a market for it. It's still an old device that needs revisions and such ;)

I recently bought this machine:
http://www.mcbia.com/auction/randy/Akai-GX-635D-1.jpg
For about 60 dollars. Normally worth about 450 dollars overhere.
It came with a dust cover, worth about 125 dollars.
I sold the dust cover for 125 dollars and gave the money I gained to the friend who picked the machine up for me. He was really quick (you have to be ;)).

Hear hear, a set of all american Acoustic Research MST Speakers:
http://www.bachecaannunci.it/adpics/dsc03715103.jpg
A friend of mine wasn't using them and I just couldn't resist

http://www.classicspeakerpages.net/_...r_mst-1-2.jpeg

They will be replacing my Good old AR4's on the Bedroom :)

I bought a Topping T20 amp for $50 a couple of weeks ago and got given a 1967 Revox A77 for free from a guy at work - needs fixing though

What does the Topping sound like?
That's a Class D chipamp, right?
Usually the problem with the A77 are the heads (anything more than 4mm of wear will cause dropouts, especially with the 4 track models) and the (frako) condensators, which go up in smoke. Also the pots are usually causing trouble.
A '67er A77 is an MK-I, which is quite rare.

If your heads are in good nick (the usually aren't...), it's really worth replacing the pots and the condensators. These machines can sound brilliant.

Topping sounds surprisingly good for a $50 amp, only has 1 input though, perfect for PC use. It's technically a T-class tripath amp, which is basically D class.

My PC setup looks like this:
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...io/setje-1.jpg
Which sounds a lot better then you'd expect :)

No pics at wok, will have to wait till I get home, and I'll see if I can add a pic of mine.
The Revox has no left channel Right hand all good.

No left channel on recording or playback?

Are you familiar with the internals of A77's?
Cause if you are I don't have to tell you they have interchangeable rec/pb circuit boards for each channel.

http://www.homews.co.uk/LrgA77Revox.Rear.jpg
They are at the bottom. You can just take them out and switch them :D.

Yeah, I have not had time to look at it yet, this is my Christmas project - 3 weeks off work too hot to go out.

Just ask :).
I'm not a pro, but I do know something about these machines :).

-6° overhere now.
God I love the winter :).

Off to bed now!
nighty!

Another tapedeck. It was 10 miles from here and cost only 20 dollars.
Problem description: Lack of high frequencies.
Right...
Now, tapedecks have heads which are supposed to be lined up with the tape with extreme precision.
And err... welll
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...o/IMG_1667.jpg
They're in all kinds of different directions :D.
AND really dirty.
So I took care of that

And here it is:
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...o/IMG_1671.jpg
:).

Those AR4's are tough to beat. I owned a pair for a few years and wish I still had them.

Easy to beat man. Try AR2's, or AR3's ;D.
There's always something better.
I used to be a huge AR fan, but I've sold most of them.
They sound a bit too 'brown' for me. But you've got to love the Bass responce and the laid back sound. Satchmo actually owned AR's, did you know that?

Eitherway, AR4's are cheap to buy (about 40 dollars) here.
I don't know how much they cost there or how much the shipping would cost, but I wouldn't mind taking the effort to provide you with a pair ;).

I'm curious to know what other speakers you own.

Eh... Well, the AR4's, which will soon be replaced by the AR MST's.
Then there's a set of Tannoy SRM10B's in my 'studio'. I have IMF Super Compact II in my living room (which don't cost a thing here and sound really incredible). I have a spare set of Wharfedale 504's for when I need small speakers. And yeah, I have wharfedale Active Diamonds in my studio (to monitor stuff I'm recording).
And then I have some speakers for fun.
Like a pair of Goodmans Mambo. I have a little Hitachi rig with the speakers that came with it. I have a pair of little B&O Speakers to go with my 60's B&O rig and I have a pair of sphere shaped space-age grundig 2 way speakers.
Apart from the Goodmans Mambo all these little ones actually sound quire allright for their size.

And yeah, I have a pair of Beyerdynamic DT-990 headphones.

that tape machinge looks sweet!

Freebees!

http://www.real-audio.ru/measurement...deck/gx-75.jpg
Got this for free at a friend's. Another friend fixed it for me.
Owe him some beer now :D

And then this Rarity:
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...o/IMG_2186.jpg
For free in Haarlem City. A friend picked it up for me there.
He's completely jealous. He should be. It's ****ing brilliant.

I think my gear slut bf would be infinitely jealous of the things you get for free.

Just talk to everyone about your hobbies and never say no ;).
You'll soon be known as the 'guy you can take all your old crap to', but that doesn't matter. There's some real gems now and then :).

A friend of a friend has asked me to compile a nice audio set for him.
I found him a neat Marantz PM-80 and am now searching for a CD player, cassette deck and tuner to go with it.
I just did a ridiculous bid of €10 on a Marantz cassettedeck that was advertised on internet. It came with a nice 3-head Denon deck.
I got a reply in a couple of minutes. The seller thought the price was nice and was even willing to ship the decks to me.
So there you go, one free Denon DRM-700A for me
http://img1.classistatic.com/cps/bln...?set_id=2C4000
I haven't got a clue what to do with it (altough it's pretty nice, this is probably my 'worst' cassette deck), but still... Freebies :D

That would go well with my DMD1000 MD player, you willing to pay postage lol

Haha, I wonder wat sending something to australia costs, gimme a sec :)

€34,30, which is 44,74AUD.
That's about what the deck would cost to buy here ;D.

See how well the would go together

I've got it here now. It's like new and it sounds very good, too.
My Akai GX-75 kicks the crap out of the denon, but the Akai was thrice the price when it was new.
click here to have a listen, if you care :). This is recorded on an old (about 20 years) Sony UX cassette.
It lacks a bit of punch and attack, but other than that, very nice.

Eitherway, my tuner was giving up on me and altough I rarely listen to the radio, I was bothered by that. So I bought a new tuner for virtually no money.
http://audio-heritage.jp/MARANTZ/tuner/st-50bl.JPG
It was for sale for about $10USD and it was sold by the man who sold me the cassette deck. So I could combine it to save shipping costs.
It's a brilliant thing. Works beautifully, you can even store whether you'd like to hear your preset channel in stereo or mono. The sound quality is awesome and it looks very nice too. Sexy display :)

I feel like I'm the only one buying audio gear here.
Come on guys ;). Even Mp3 players are welcome here :D>

You are not :)

I just got a Yeti Blue Microphone and M-Audio Fast Track audio interface. Together I can record the **** out of pretty much anything except drums ( i can just not studio quality). Recording today is soooo easy, god bless technology.

I only record using mic to amp though, I hate I REPEAT HATE recording straight through the computer. Even on the rare occasion it sounds as good I feel like im cheating.

http://www.devicedaily.com/wp-conten...microphone.jpg

http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/shop_i...c25f3fb645.jpg

I don't know the mics, but the fast track sure is a nice little thing :).
And indeed, recording is easy. But good recording is as much as a challenge as it was 50 years ago. Don't take the easy way :D.

Hope you'll post some recordings once you've made them :)

I just bought a squeezebox touch. My PC setup is as in the pic.

Im about halfway through a full album at the moment. Theres a few live shows of the band I played with but Im gona have to locate them and upload them sometime.

I don't know what a squeezebox is.
And I can't find it on the picture.
But that's because I can only see that little castle-shaped logo
*mjum*

I don't know what music you make, but looking at your avatar, I think I'll like it :)

The squeezebox is in the lounge, it streams from my PC to my main stereo

@ Rezz Is that a reaction to my reaction on your posting?
Because in that case, you're fast :D.

Google Logitech squeezebox touch, they cost $309 aussie at the moment.

Niiiice.
Expensive.
But niiiice.

Haha no its a squeezebox. I thought thats what he meant.

I guess most of my audio gear is quite expensive, but I do save up for it, even at my age.
I recently got a custom armrest for my TT - only 3 in the world. It cost me a donation to charity.
I think it works very well.

Is it just me or is that just poshness? :D.